Rapists attacked woman they lured into bogus taxi

Two men jailed for sex attacks on teenager after she left nightclub on New Year's Day.

Jailed: Abel Muntean and Raul Novac.
Police Scotland

A man posed as a taxi driver before raping a woman who got into his car.

Abel Muntean, 19, then drove her to another man, who also raped her on New Year's Day 2017.

Muntean picked up his 18-year-old victim outside a nightclub in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in the early hours before carrying out the sex attack.

He then took her to his accomplice Raul Novac, 34, at a house in the town.

Muntean was jailed for ten years and Novac for five years at the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday.

Novac was sentenced to a further two years and three months after fleeing Scotland to his homeland of Romania, which resulted in a European Arrest Warrant being issued.

Judge Lord Uist told Muntean: "The crimes of which you were convicted are of such a grave nature that a very lengthy period in custody must be the outcome in order to punish you, deter you and others from committing such crimes and for the protection of the female public from harm from men such as you."

'You were convicted by the jury of shocking, predatory and outrageous criminal conduct consisting of the abduction and two rapes of the same 18-year-old woman who was unknown to you.'

Lord Uist.

He then told Novac: "Your commission of this offence has been described as opportunistic, but you also have continued to deny your guilt and shown no remorse."

During their trial, the woman, now 20, said that she had gone clubbing with work colleagues before meeting Muntean after being asked to leave by security.

She told the court: "I asked him if he was a taxi and he could take me home and he said 'yes'."

She said he pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel's and asked her if she wanted a drink.

The woman said she took a drink and added: "I can't remember anything after that."

Her next memory was waking up naked in a bed in a strange house. She said: "My body was in agony."

Muntean, of Glenrothes, and father-of-three Novac were placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

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